When configured in routing mode, Internet protocol (IP) data packets may be sent and received across the digital subscriber line (DSL) interfaces. There are a number of standard methods used by vendors to do this, most notably asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) and ATM adaptation layer version 5 (AAL5). However, ATM has shortcomings, in that it is not a native packet based solution.
There are other issues to be solved when sending Internet protocol data packets over digital subscriber line interfaces, such as bonding a plurality of DSL ports together to form a single higher speed logical link. There are standard solutions to bonding, such as M-pair mode defined in G.991.2 for high density digital subscriber lines G.SHDSL interfaces. However, M-pair mode for G.SHDSL does not allow any dynamic change to the number of links in the bonded group while the group is active.